RUSH: Well, here we go, folks. Game on. Same old, same old. Same formula. So the bad guys put out a book that excoriates, impugns, defames the president. The Drive-By Media pick it all up and promote it, try to make it look like everybody in the country agrees with it. And we have to come in here and once again unpack it all and tell people what’s actually true and what’s really going on. And the cycle just keeps repeating!

JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!

RUSH: It’s become a formula! It’s become predictable! Bad guys write a book; bad guys go on TV. Drive-Bys circle the wagons, amplify, lie, distort, whatever. We’ve gotta spend all of our time defending the garbage, all in a supposed battle for the hearts and minds of the American voter. And so we’re here and that’s what’s on the agenda. It’s great to have you with us. Open Line Friday. When we go to the phones, anything you want to talk about, have at it. Telephone number, 800-282-2882. The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.

If you note that I sound somewhat frustrated, you would not be incorrect, because none of this is news. All of us are caught up in the middle of never-ending political agendas, but it’s disguised as news. We’re being told that this is news. “This is earth-shattering, breaking news! Why, we had no idea this was coming,” and that’s not at all what any of this is. This is all prepackaged. It’s preplanned.

It’s been edited and formatted, and it’s been timed. It has everything about it designed to move forward a political agenda. But everybody involved in that’s saying, “No, no! There’s nothing going on here. We just have an honorable guy who’s very, very worried about the country and wants to set the record.” If he wants to set the record straight, why did he wait a year and do it for millions of dollars? If he cares so damn much about this.

Anyway, yesterday, my friends, I spoke about the concept of two Americas — at least two Americas — and I want to it illustrate exactly what I’m talking about here, if you’ll pardon me for just a moment, if you’ll indulge here for just a moment. Again to restate it. On one side here, we have the country and the people who make it work and the way they live their lives. They get up every day and they go about their business. And in the process, the country works. Using the freedoms, the liberty, the ambition, the talent, the desire — whatever it is — that makes up people. Whatever it is that makes everybody who we are.

Everybody gets up and goes to it.

On the other side we have the Drive-By Media and the American left, which is engaged in a single project of tearing the other America down and tearing it apart, all because they don’t like America, all because they don’t like the people who are making the country work, from top to bottom. And so theirs is a never-ending quest to tear it down. They tear it down or try to tear it down by depressing and dispiriting the people who are getting up and going to work or whatever it is they’re doing that constitutes actual living life, as opposed to the other side.

Yeah, they’re alive, but they’re not living life. They are people absorbed and drenched in hatred and resentment, anger and outrage. And they’re taking the fact that they’re outraged and unhappy and miserable out on everybody else. And in the process, one half of America spends its day making the country work and trying to defend it. The other half is just trying to tear everything apart. And last night I was with the half of America — or whatever percentage it is — that makes the country work.

Last night was the annual dinner for the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, the annual fundraising dinner. MC-LEF is 23 years old. I was there in the home of one of the founders as the whole idea was being put together in 1993. It was a home in Rockville Centre in New York, and it was a number of great ex-Marines — some now in law enforcement, some were in finance — and they wanted to put together a foundation which would provide college scholarships for the children of Marines killed in action. They later added law enforcement to it, and many of them worked in the FBI, many of them worked in law enforcement, police departments or elsewhere.

And so what was originally a charity to provide college scholarships for the children of Marines killed in action was expanded to include children of people in law enforcement. And on extreme emergencies like 9/11, MC-LEF expanded to all federal agencies where heads of families died and their children needed college scholarships. I became an early donor. I’ve never been an active, practical participant in the actual structure of the charity, but Kathryn and I have been active donors and active fundraisers.

And, as you well know, much of what we do is tied to MC-LEF. The Two If By Tea project was tied to MC-LEF. The Rush Revere book series is tied to MC-LEF. And last night was the annual fundraiser. The Marine Band shows up. There’s always a special guest honoree from the United States military. Last night it was to be the secretary of defense, James Mattis, who had to cancel on Tuesday. And the event was last night. And he had to cancel because of what’s going on in Syria. Now, the event was held at Cipriani Wall Street.

It was a beautiful setting. It was jam-packed. It’s a black-tie event and formal military attire, and it is a night totally devoted to celebrating the Marine Corps, celebrating the United States military, celebrating the values and traditions of the military which I think form the bedrock of the values and tractions of our society at large. We had a table… Two tables. Kathryn and I had two tables, and we invited… You know, we’ve got this new feature going on our website, RushLimbaugh.com, called Meet Rush.

When you click on that, you’re presented with a form where you can fill out a little email questionnaire about why you think our team should arrange a video conference with you to explain why you listen, how long you’ve been listening. And then we convert those videos and occasionally play them on an area of the website. And we’ve been at this for, I don’t know, a month and a half now, maybe longer in setting it all up. We began airing some of the videos that we produced.

You remember the one that I told you about on the Pacific island, who has to walk a bunch of feet to get to the top of a mountain to get 2G cellular connectivity so she can download podcasts of the program each and every day. She then goes back down the hill where she does her missionary work. We’re talking to people all over the country, and last night we invited three that we have met during the Meet Rush, Team Rush effort here. They’re all former Marines. They’re all lifetime listeners, they and their wives.

So it’s Kathryn and me and our six guests — well, three guests and their wives — at one table. We’ve got some pictures of this we’ll put at RushLimbaugh.com after I finish this little segment here. Koko’s gonna transcribe it and put some pictures up. Just great people. Lifetime listeners. When you see these pictures, these are the people I’m talking about who make the country work. These are the people that… Not because they listen to me, although I think it is inseparable. People who make the country work are listening to this program because this program reflects what they believe.

Our guests Phil and Patricia, Joel and Felicia, and Joseph and Briar.

This program validates what people who make the country work live, breathe, and believe. It was a pleasure meeting them. I had to hustle up there. I had to race out of here after the program. I had to fly up. I had to fly to Newark because the superintendent of the Port Authority… I’m leaving something out. They asked me to speak when General Mattis couldn’t make it. You talk about…? These people have all paid (laughing) to be in there to hear the secretary of defense, and he can’t make it, and so it’s me. Jim Kallstrom, former director of the FBI office in New York, is who asked me.

He said, “Would you mind?”

I said, “Jim, are you kidding? I’m not… I’m not…”

“No, no. You gotta do it.”

“How much you looking for?”

“Ten, 15 minutes, max. Ten, 15 minutes.”

“Oh, well, Jim, I don’t even get warmed up ’til 30 minutes.”

“Okay. No problem.”

So they sent the superintendent of the Port Authority to Newark to meet me for lights and sirens into Manhattan to make sure I got there in time. And we did. We pulled in right as the reception and cocktail period was ending at 7 and everybody was being seated, and it was one inspirational speaker after another. There was a woman who lost her husband in combat. The foundation had provided scholarships for her two kids. She gave a stem-winder of a speech about what it all meant, about what it meant being married to somebody who the families know what’s gonna happen, what can happen in combat.

And it’s the other America.

This last night… Without the people that were in that room, the country wouldn’t be what it is. We could get along without James Comey, and we can get along without Nancy Pelosi and Valerie Plame, and we can get along without all these people. We can get along without Anderson Cooper. We can get along without George Stephanopoulos. We can probably get along without me. But we cannot get along without the people in that room last night. As the closing speaker said — and he was responding to some of the comments I made, ’cause I talked about this divide in the country, and I pulled no punches.

I told ’em I’m worried. I told ’em that we’ve got a serious challenge. We’ve got a great nation at risk in a dangerous world, and I talked about this divide and I talked about — as you’ve heard me say — the theory that I don’t think we have anything that binds us together anymore like we had in World War II. This guy stood up after I’d finished. There were some other comments, and he referenced it. Not by me and by name, but he said, “Look, let me just tell you something. We wearing the uniform here in this room tonight? Don’t worry. We got it. We got it.

“Just like the NYPD. They got it. Just like the Port Authority cops. They got it. Don’t worry. We got it. We stay in our lane. It doesn’t matter who’s running the show. We know what we gotta do, and we got it.” And that’s why we couldn’t get along without those people in that room. And those people in that room last night are among those who get ripped and lampooned and impugned by these other guys that we have to spend a bunch of time chattin’ about here today as though what they think matters, as though what they say or write is gospel.

So we have to spend time exposing who they are and exposing the lies or the misrepresentations, the deceit that they’re using in this repeating formula of the left on the assault against the country, and a few of us here on the right standing up trying to say “no” and stop them and defend it. But it was the people in the room last night at the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. Not just the uniformed Marines, but the people that were there as donors and who show up every year. It was a microcosm of what I believe is people who make the country work, make the country run.

And it was an honor for me to be part of it. It was a distinct privilege to be asked to speak in that room. I always think I bomb it too. I mean, I always think I didn’t do nearly as good as I could have when it’s over. I fretted over it all the way home last night. Then I realized I would have today to fix any… I didn’t say anything wrong. It’s just I’m so hypercritical that I never, ever… Well, “never, ever.” I rarely tell myself I nailed it. But the crowd was up and supportive. It was just a great room to be in and a tremendous event to be part of.

I just wanted to acknowledge this and I wanted to let you know we’re gonna have just a few pictures. We need to respect these people’s privacy. No last names of the three lifetime listeners, all ex-military. They had the time of their lives. They had… I mean, they’re ex-military. They have served their country. They had never been to an event like this, and they just… It was so great to have them there, people who genuinely appreciate it. One of these guys wants to go play golf. These people remember everything I said from the time they have been listening, and they’re throwing it at me at dinner.

I’m just stunned and blown away. They remember more than I do, and I have one of the best memories in the world. They remember more than I do about certain things I’ve said and when and how. So it was an invigorating evening, and it was very uplifting, and I wish everybody could participate in events like this for that very reason. So it won’t be long and we’ll have… I’ve just got two pictures I’m gonna put up for now. One is a shot of all of us at the table — and then not to slight the others, but there’s a really good picture of me with one of the three listeners that we invited from the Meet Rush event.

His name is Joel. He’s a former Marine. Here’s wearing his medals on his tuxedo jacket. Great people. Their wives were fun. It was… But these two pictures will give you a flavor for what the evening was — and, again, no last names because I don’t want these people descended upon by the people we’re gonna be talking about today on the left who seem to have only one desire and that’s rip everything to shreds and tear it down. And I just do not want people who have done nothing but be listeners of this program to have to deal with any garbage like that. So that’s why no last names.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The names of the three couples — lifetime listeners, all military members — who were our guests last night. Phil and Patricia, Joel and Felicia, and Joseph and Briar were their names. And I would love to tell you their last names, but in this day and age and this climate I’m not gonna subject them to any potential harassment that might result from the trolls that live and breathe on Facebook and Twitter and Media Matters and wherever. But trust me: When you see the photos, you will… You’ll be able to… They look it.

They’re great Americans. You’ll be able to tell by looking at them.